


Time to Kill

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Demon!Bill, Human!Bill, M/M, Romance, Violence, prison!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7580644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped inside a clinic for the demented - a hospital where living nightmares go to be subdued, a prison for monsters like him - Dipper has a lot of time to kill. But unfortunately for him, so does his cellmate - a notorious dream demon known as Bill Cipher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wide Awake

The world around him was black, shrouded from head to toe in darkness, yet he was in fact awake. Wide awake. It didn’t feel like he was though. He hadn’t been dreaming; he didn’t think he had been anyway.

Today was a Tuesday. That was among the handful of facts he was aware of at the time. The few other things he knew for certain included his name being Dipper Pines, the fact that he was a twelve year old boy who had been sent to live with his great uncle for the summer, and that he was lying down on something much too hard to be anywhere near comfortable.

What he didn’t know was everything else. His mind was blank, as if it had been wiped clean at some point during his sleep. He didn’t even know whether it was night or day.  
It felt like he should have been tired, but he wasn’t. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed - he presumed that’s what he was laying on, especially since there was what felt like a pillow propping up his head - and pushed himself up, first into a sitting position, and then into a standing one. For the few seconds he struggled to regain his balance, his body swayed from side to side, and the first step he took was a hesitant one, though he did eventually manage to put all of his weight on his right foot without collapsing to the floor.

After his first success, he set his heart on walking around the edge of the room, trying to decipher at least some facts about where he was. Keeping his hand pressed against the wall on his right, he staggered forward slowly - trying to keep calm but failing - and tripped over something metallic, resulting in him falling forward onto something that felt identical to the bed he’d been lying on. Soft sheets. A hard, too firm mattress. His hand grazed over the painted brick wall the other side of the bed. And then waved straight through his cellmate’s body.

His cellmate didn’t say anything, but hovered cross-legged just above his pillow, silently watching as the twelve year old flailed his arms wildly in a desperate attempt to get off the bed and back to where he’d been before. Once he’d succeeded, Dipper resumed the mission he’d set himself ten seconds earlier and began to walk along the wall again - this time keeping his hand against the wall he’d discovered on the other side of the other bed. He wondered whose bed it was and if there were any more beds in the room - it would give him an idea of how big the room was - but he reached the door before he crashed into any more.

From what he could tell from trailing along the perimeter of the room, it wasn’t very big. There were only two beds in the room, each of them having been made for only one person. The owner of the other bed - whose presence he was blissfully unaware of - was still nowhere to be found. Even when Dipper called out, asking if anyone was there, nobody answered. So he returned to his bed, laid with his face against the pillow, and cried, the sounds of his sobbing muffled by the pillow.

Everything was new to him. He remembered being able to see; this blindness was new and foreign. And whilst the feeling of being alone was one he’d experienced before, he was sure he’d had a family before. He knew who he was. It was just that he didn’t know who he’d been before, or why he was wherever he was then.

There was a desk next to the door and a cabinet by each of the beds, with drawers that presumably contained clean clothes for him. Upon opening the top drawer, however, he found it contained what felt like two journals - one of which had something hand-shaped glued to the cover. They both had leather covers but one of them was much thicker than the other. A pen lay beside them in the drawer, and he took it out along with the thinner journal, staggered over to desk and sat down in the chair next to it - he still had trouble walking given his sudden state of blindness - and opened the book, preparing to begin writing in it seeing as there didn’t seem to be much else to do there.

The door on his left clicked open, startling him. He dropped the pen immediately, letting it roll off the wooden desk and onto the soft carpeted floor. “You won’t want to use that one,” a voice, coming from the direction of the door, advised him. “That’s already been written in. We found that in your bag when we brought you in. You want the other one; that’s your diary.”

Dipper stayed sitting in his chair, but felt around the floor with his bare foot in search of the pen he’d dropped. A hand suddenly grabbed his and pushed the pen into his palm. He coiled his fingers around it, gripping it with every ounce of strength he had left, and vowed not to let it fall again.

“Dipper Pines,” the voice stated, not at all as if it were asking for confirmation of his identity. It was a male voice, but one he did not recognise, and sounded gentle yet stern. “It is my job to inform you of the rules we will be enforcing on you during your time here, which - as far as my colleagues and I are concerned - will be a very long time indeed… an eternity, perhaps.” 

Dipper blinked once. Twice. Three times. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force himself to wake up because whatever was going on it couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare. There was no other possible explanation and in Dipper’s mind, science and rationality always prevailed.

“What’s going on?” he asked hastily when he failed to wake up. “Where am I? Why can’t I see?”

The man by the door held his hand up to silence him, immediately realised it made no difference as the child couldn’t see him and let his hand fall back to its previous position. “That’s enough,” he said gruffly, shutting him up. “You know what you did. You deserve to be in here, just like everyone else.” He paused for a moment or two, letting the message sink in, before speaking again. “Anyway, as I was saying… You’ll stay in here most of the time and only be let out for meals - except breakfast, which you’ll eat in here - and to stretch your legs out in the yard. Hang onto that diary,” he warned. “It’ll come in handy. And there’s a knife you’ll probably find useful in one of the drawers, in case you need to defend yourself…

Your cellmate should show you the ropes.” He smirked slightly and chuckled to himself at the irony of his words. “Oh, and he can get a bit… violent. But so can everyone here - yourself included - so it shouldn’t be too tough for you.”

He looked Dipper up and down, frowning. “You’re a young one, aren’t you? Well, I suppose your type all start young.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. His words rung in Dipper’s ears, repeating over and over in his mind. Cellmate. Violent. It sounded like a prison. Perhaps there was a reason for that.

His chair screeched as he pushed it across the floor, away from the desk, and he stood up and turned to face his bed. “Is anyone there?” he called out quietly, his embarrassment showing on his face as red marks began to creep their way up to his cheeks as a result of his blood rushing upwards. He felt like he was calling out to empty air. Surely if someone was there, he’d know it by now? That’s what he thought, though of course that wasn’t true at all.

Bill Cipher had been watching him ever since they’d dragged him into their cell and dumped him on the bed across the room from him. He had no real, tangible body, though he did have an appearance, which is why Dipper hadn’t stumbled across him yet. He hadn’t moved once from his spot on his own bed - not that he needed one - and had been hovering above it with his legs crossed for hours on end. He knew exactly who his so-called cellmate was. He knew everything about him. Of course, he had no intention of telling him any of what he knew. Watching him squirm was half the fun.

Still, he saw no reason not to let his presence be known now that his existence had been exposed by one of the mortal guards, so he announced himself to his human cellmate by floating over to him and startling him with his voice. “You sound scared, kid. What’s up with that?” He knew exactly what the child’s response would be, so it didn’t matter when Dipper failed to answer.

“Wh- Who are you? Where are you?” That last question wasn’t really needed. Without his sight, Dipper’s sense of hearing was made more sensitive, and so he could determine easily where his companion was in relation to himself.

“Yeesh, relax, kid,” his cellmate laughed, his voice growing louder as he approached the bed Dipper was slouching on. “Name’s Bill Cipher. I’ll be cellmate for all eternity - at least, that’s what it sounds like. After what you’ve done, you won’t be getting out of here any time soon. Neither will I, for that matter.”

Propping himself up with his elbows momentarily, Dipper let himself drop so that he was face-down on his bed again, the soft cotton of the pillowcase invading his mouth as he bared his teeth in frustration. “I don’t know what I did,” he groaned miserably, seeking comfort but only receiving a loud, delighted declaration of “Well I do” in reply. Bill had no intention whatsoever of giving him a more meaningful reply and he said so, relishing the human’s melancholy as he watched from no more than a couple of inches away.

“You’ll get used to it, kid.” That might have been true, but the way Bill announced it wasn’t very convincing. “Probably,” he added, only enhancing Dipper’s view of the hopelessness of his situation. “For now though, you must be starving. I bet you haven’t eaten for… I don’t know… a few days, maybe?”

That caught Dipper’s attention and he pushed himself up, unknowingly facing his demonic companion. Wiping away the few remaining teardrops staining his cheeks - and silently hoping his cellmate hadn’t noticed them - he nodded, almost optimistically, only to be instantly disappointed by his cellmate’s response.

“That’s too bad.” Dipper’s face fell and his heart sank in unison at the sound of Bill’s words. “You slept right through the evening meal - that was ages ago - and you’ll have to wait until morning for breakfast.” He paused for a moment, his temporary silence only serving as a means of making what he had to say next all the more devastating. “Oh, and I wouldn’t get your hopes up about that. They tend not to bring breakfast to this particular cell.” Catching sight of Dipper’s subsequent frown, he explained further, though without giving too much away. “I don’t eat,” he said simply.

Turning away from his human cellmate, he floated back over to his own bed and lingered above it in the way he always did, promising himself he’d keep a close eye on his companion at least for as long as they shared a cell - though more likely for all eternity.

Dipper’s curiosity would be the death of him. He was coming to realise that, and he thought it likely that it was that exact personality trait of his that got him into this mess - whatever that mess was - in the first place. Whatever he’d done, it must have been heinous enough to deserve him being locked up for. And he knew he’d been able to see before, so he quickly deduced that whatever he’d done to get locked up, it had also caused him to lose his sight. Unless of course, his sight was taken away by whoever had locked him up. That didn’t seem too far-fetched.

One of the things that bothered him the most was the fact that Bill appeared to know a lot more than he was letting on. He wasn’t as naïve as most other children his age, but he had been hoping that his cellmate would be able to shed some light on his situation. Bill seemed more than capable of doing so, but for some reason also unwilling. It didn’t make sense to him. They were in it together, weren’t they? As far as he was concerned, the more he knew, the more of a chance he and Bill had to get out of wherever they were being confined in. Bill didn’t seem to share his opinion though.

Someone was moving around outside the door, in the corridor; he could hear their footsteps. Doing his best to keep silent, he stood up from the bed and cautiously approached the door, focusing solely on the sound of the footsteps. Once he reached the door - he could tell because his hand collided with it, as he’d been holding his hands out in front of him while he walked - he traced over its features with his fingertips until he came to a handle, pulled it and pushed it, but to no avail. He should have anticipated such a result. He was locked up. He wasn’t meant to be able to get out.

Someone tapped on the large glass window on his left, startling him. He tripped over the desk and chair in his haste to get to the window in response, falling to the floor. By the time he was scrambling to get back up, Bill had manifested beside him and held put a hand, pulling him up to a standing position. “Shame,” he mused, letting go of the human’s hand. “I thought you were the smart one.”

At the time, Dipper failed to realise how significant his cellmate’s choice of words really was; he had his mind on other things, such as the person outside the cell in the hallway and his cellmate’s peculiarity. “Why didn’t you let me know you were here earlier?” he asked tentatively.

“I was having fun messing with you. Get used to that, kid.” He could hear the smirk in his cellmate’s voice. “By the way, your hand went straight through me earlier. Try not to make a habit of that - it’s a little invasive,” he warned. “Anyway, you’d better get to bed. It’s getting late, you know.”

If he’d had any less control, he would have screamed at him that no, he didn’t know it was getting late because everything was dark to him now. But he retained his composure, trudged over to his bed (almost walking right through his cellmate, so Bill had to fling himself out of the child’s way in order to avoid him) and perched on the edge of it. He scowled to himself and kept his head down, but he didn’t lay down and go to sleep as he’d been instructed. In spite of blackness in front of his eyes, he was wide awake.


	2. Crazy

Wednesday, probably. Dipper already felt like he was going mad. From what he could tell, his cellmate woke him up. The first thing he heard upon regaining consciousness was the sound of Bill’s wild, enthusiastic voice, but his mind was hazy and he couldn’t hear him well enough to deduce what he was saying - his voice was simply a series of unclear echoes rebounding off the walls in the background of his mind, nothing close to a coherent string of sentences. Sniffing the air, his stomach rumbled and the delectable odour of freshly made pancakes attacked his senses. It must have been a mirage.

It was. What he actually had to eat was a few slices of stale bread, but he wolfed it down nonetheless. He was disappointed - there was no doubt about that - but he was so hungry he wouldn’t have dreamed of turning his nose up at whatever little food he was offered. Bill brought it to him, proudly announcing that he was the one responsible for convincing the staff to bring him breakfast and stating that if it hadn’t been for him, he would have been forgotten about already.

“I don’t eat,” he explained as he watched Dipper gnaw on the slices of chewy, stale bread he’d been given for breakfast. Dipper didn’t consider it much of an explanation - it opened up more questions than it answered - but it was the best he was going to get out of his cellmate, and at least he hadn’t been violent yet. As the well as the stale bread, he’d also been given a small cup of milk that he considered to already be on its way to turning into yoghurt, but he didn’t say anything about it and thirstily poured it down his throat - though he grimaced at the taste and texture of it afterwards.

Bill had told him during his much needed (albeit revolting) breakfast that he’d better start writing in his journal soon, although he didn’t tell him why and clearly had no intention of doing so, as Dipper found out when he asked. Bill’s voice suddenly faded and it became apparent he’d been close to him and was now moving away. Trying to ignore his cellmate, Dipper took the blank journal out of the drawer - along with a pen - set it down on the desk at the front of the room and started writing in it.

The trouble was, he had no idea what to write. All he did was write his name and then he crossed it out and chewed the end of the pen instead. He heard his cellmate laughing from across the room and whether it was paranoia or not, he felt as if it was directed at him and suddenly became embarrassed. That got him thinking about what his writing was actually like. He had a feeling it had been relatively neat before but now that he couldn’t see it - or anything, for that matter - he realised it was probably very messy indeed - possibly unreadable.

“You worry too much,” his cellmate laughed, approaching him again, and pointed out his pink, blushed cheeks. “It’s a diary, kid. And trust me, if you could see, it’d really come in handy!”

Dipper groaned. “But I can’t see,” he grumbled, snapping the journal shut. “Surely you have to help me! I’m blind, I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know how ended up here! I don’t know anything! I just can’t remember!” His words started off as an exclamation but quickly dissolved into sobs, and he curled up on the uncomfortable seat, hugging his knees to his chest, as his cellmate loomed over him.

“You’re in hospital, kid,” Bill chuckled, a hint of malice in his shrill voice. Dipper raised an eyebrow at him in suspicion. “Well, a hospital of sorts,” his cellmate conceded. “A prison, really. But they call it a hospital. You’re insane, kid, and so am I!” Alarmed at what he was hearing - though simultaneously thankful that he was telling the truth - Dipper shook his head vigorously, as if trying to rid himself of the idea that he really was insane. “We’re all crazy here,” Bill concluded. “Just wait until you meet the others.”

He didn’t need to meet the other prisoners - or patients - to realise just how crazy that place was. A while later - before he was let out of his cell - he learned of the rules the prison abided by, and this was enough to convince him he’d go insane if he stayed there any longer, although there was still every chance he was already mad.

The diary was important, apparently, because it would remind him of the days he’d endured before; or it would do if he could read it. According to the member of staff (or prison guard, as he felt inclined to call him) who visited him to check that he’d survived the night, the days reset themselves at midnight and so every inmate spent their lives there in a perpetual cycle of amnesia. There were two types of inmates, he learned: the predators, who were the dominant prisoners out of the two in each cell, and the prey, who had no choice but to bend to the will of their cellmates. The warden wouldn’t tell him which category he had been assigned to, but he had a fair idea anyway.

As time went on, and Dipper spent most of it going out of his mind with boredom, his curiosity regarding the place grew and grew, the call of mystery dragging him deeper and deeper into what he believed to be a web of lies and secrets so tangled that one could do nothing but go insane trying to unravel it. His cellmate, on the other hand, seemed to laugh an awful lot.

Suddenly remembering the warden’s earlier warning - that Bill was often violent and he’d need something to defend himself with - and his suggestion that he kept the knife that was in one of the drawers at hand, he took the weapon out and slipped it under his pillow, hoping his cellmate wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately, he did.

“Useless, kid. It’s useless.” This was just another thing for Bill to laugh at. “You think you can hurt me with that pathetic thing?” Dipper’s eyes widened and he scowled angrily at himself, confused and hurt but most of all frustrated with the way his cellmate was treating him - like he was nothing. “You’ll have to do a lot better than that if you want to defend yourself against me, kid!” His voice suddenly grew louder as he moved closer to the twelve year old sitting on his bed and he hovered above the mattress, alarming close to the child. “One thing you’ll learn about me is that I always get what I want. If I want to hurt you - or if I suddenly decide I want to kill you - there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Dipper nodded in understanding, his body quivering with anxiety. If it wasn’t enough that he’d been dumped in some kind of prison, now his cellmate - the only being he had to talk to for the foreseeable future - was threatening him, potentially with death. Bill chuckled to himself again and then Dipper heard the door to their cell open with a mechanical click. Someone - his cellmate - grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the corridor, dragging him down the hallway until they entered another room which erupted into noisy uproar as soon as they arrived.

He felt himself being pushed forwards and he soon found himself sitting on what felt like a bench (though he couldn’t tell how long it was) next to someone else, another male (who must have been an adult, possibly in his early twenties, judging by his voice), who spoke to him when he sat down.

“So you’re Bill Cipher’s new plaything.” It definitely wasn’t a question, but a statement about his identity. “I was wondering when you’d show up.” Dipper wondered what he meant by “new plaything” but didn’t dare ask. “I’m Keyhole,” the stranger introduced himself, “And this is Pyronica and Hectorgon .” He gestured to each of his companions as he spoke, clearly unaware of Dipper’s condition.

“I’m uh, Dipper.” His new companions all frowned at him and groaned in response. It was only then that he realised Bill had left him alone with three other inmates; he could still hear his voice but it was further away than it had been before, as if he were across the room from him.

“You died yet?” the only female in the group, Pyronica, asked gruffly. The way she phrased it made it sound like the most normal question in the world, but Dipper was taken aback by it. Of course he hadn’t died yet. If he had, he wouldn’t be there, would he? Too stunned and afraid to speak, he shook his head silently, trembling slightly as he did so. Unbeknownst to him, Pyronica grinned wickedly at him. “He’ll put a stop to that soon enough,” she warned.

The other two laughed at him in unison and he forced a smile but didn’t succeed in fooling anybody with it. “I must say,” Hectorgon started. “I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long - with us, I mean. Most humans run the moment they set eyes on us. You haven’t even screamed yet.” Now Dipper was the one frowning and he asked him what he meant, adding that he’d been blind ever since he’d woken up the day before. “That explains it then,” Hectorgon concluded, almost being cut off by Keyhole’s sudden exclamation of enthusiasm.

“Why not just as Bill?” he suggested, his usually quiet voice growing louder with excitement. “I’m sure he can sort it out for you!” The other two hissed at him to keep quiet but he took no notice.

The sound of a plate being deposited on the table in front of him - combined with the scent of roast chicken and gravy - alerted him to the fact that it was lunchtime in the prison (or hospital) and his companions prompted him to eat. He ate in silence whilst the three other inmates around him chatted to one another. His interest was piqued when one of them asked Pyronica about her cellmate, who she seemed reluctant to talk about. He decided he might ask Bill about it later, but he was aware that he may never have the courage to do so. 

Once he’d finished eating, his cellmate returned to his side and led him back to their cell, asking what he thought of the other “patients” on the way. Dipper could only think of one fitting response and he couldn’t help but smile as he said it, though he couldn’t figure out why. “Crazy,” he grinned as he and Bill disappeared through the metal door of their cell.


End file.
